The retail Point of Sale (POS) terminal has evolved from a mechanical cash register to a sophisticated, networked terminal capable of rapidly identifying selected items for purchase (e.g., via optical scanning or RFID reading), tallying the order, accepting payment in a variety of forms, and generating a customer receipt. Many modern POS terminals also have additional capabilities, such as transmitting or e-mailing an electronic version of the receipt to a customer.
Generally, POS terminals connect to a number of different peripheral devices, such as pinpads, printers, optical scanners, and the like. When performing customer transactions, a POS application executing on the POS terminal communicates data and information with these peripheral devices using a well-known communication protocol (e.g., TCP/IP over USB, RS232, USB, RS232 over USB, etc.).
However, before data and information can be exchanged, the POS application must first be configured to communicate with the peripheral devices. For example, in cases where the RS232 protocol is utilized to connect a POS terminal and a POS peripheral device, certain settings for the POS application such as the baud rate, data bits, parity, handshake, and the like, must first be configured. Additionally, from time-to-time, the peripheral devices may be swapped or replaced with other peripheral devices, or the POS terminal that executes the POS application may be reloaded. When such events such as these occur, it becomes necessary to repeat the configuration process to help ensure that the POS application operates optimally with the peripheral device.